Tag Archives: memory loss

Today, I found an old (former?) friend on Facebook (…where else?!). I haven’t seen her since she left for Australia with her family when we were 12 years old. I happened to be looking through old photos and wondered if she was on there. And she was. And I saw her as she was now… 25 years later.

Married. Three boys. High School Graduate. Still close to her family. Her sister shared the same (birth) name as I did, and she was also mentioned on there – married also. Looking almost exactly the same as she had done, just older. I recognised her picture… That smile was always so bright and infectious, it was instantly recognisable, if nothing else.

My instinct was to say Hi. Naturally. Since she would never be able to find me on Facebook (I deliberately ensured that no one from my previous life could find me first), I thought it would be nice to get in contact, because before she left we were the best of friends and fellow Beatlemaniacs. In the pictures we looked like we were having a great time. But after that initial thought… another feeling came over me.

My reaction to finding her wasn’t quite what I was expecting at all. I ended up with that now-familiar shockwave I get when I realise that what “normal” people with their average lives take for granted, I never can. When I see what other people my own age are doing… in glaring comparison to mine. And I was left feeling… Sad. Inadequate. Pathetic. Lost. Forsaken. Broken. Pointless. A Nothing; A No-One.

She had a husband… I had Fibromyalgia. She had three boys… I had what felt like a hundred pills a day to take. She looked like she was doing well… I had a wheelchair and a catheter that refused to stay put. She was living a good life… I was barely alive and broken into too many pieces to even count. She lived in Australia… I lived with my elderly(ish) parents (and don’t tell them I said that!) who have to care for every damned need I have, despite my being the very wrong side of 30 (and I used to think saying “the wrong side of 20” was a tragedy…).

What on earth was I ever supposed to say to her?

All I could ever offer was the possible bad news (or unfortunate news, at least) that her former [best] friend was a wheelchair-reliant, mobility-impaired Fibromyalgia sufferer, who could no longer do anything, nor remember much of anything, and lived in constant and consistent agony. Was I only to simply talk about what I used to do – what I once was? I had no conversation, nothing to offer, and what use could there possibly be from bothering her with a G’d Day from me?

And no, it’s not about falling for some “perfection” boloney that most people put on there (there is surprisingly little about her life on here, except some recent pictures of her boys, who look adorable anyhow), and then putting my life up against them. I don’t do that anyway. It’s about the fact that what other people have, and take for granted, was never mine to enjoy, or have. There is almost no one I know, if anyone, that is in the same situation as me. Immobile, in agony, with a life lost at age 32, now living with and being taken care of by my parents for almost everything, as if I’m some kind of overgrown toddler (sort of, I’m not exactly that much taller than a child!).

Every small thing brings home what I’m not. How broken I am. What has been lost. What nothing has been left behind. I hate the self-pity… But after nearly five damned years of this, I still yet have no idea how to process all of this. Because there is no How or answer to Why… It’s something that exploded from nowhere and no one can ever explain it. Leaving me struggling to do the most basic of things, and dignity be damned! I haven’t had any of that for a while now…

This woman is a memory of what could have been, what may have been. When I knew her I was a young child with endless possibilities. Before the serious bullying (it turned out that it was she who was inadvertently keeping me safe from this, as it started up almost the moment she was gone…) that destroyed my childhood and teenage years, as well as the first half of my 20s. Before umpteen illnesses and allergies – not to mention the Fibro. Before I was killed inside and a zombified vampire of a soul returned to attempt to survive and cope with whatever little that was left of me.

She left just before the shit hit the fan… so the (rather spotty and sporadic) memories, the seemingly unending amount pictures of her or the two of us, the girl that I had been and that I was back then, all are shadows long lost to the older, destroyed woman I am now. Seeing me then, with her, innocent and ignorant of the hell that was to come for the next Quarter-Decade of life, was a shock. I don’t remember those times – I don’t remember most of my entire life – so I have no recollection of who I was before. But in those pictures I was introduced to her. This person I was. Alongside my friend. I was smiling. Having fun. Clearly being silly and enjoying it. Being Beatlemaniacs together. Being in the first year of high school together (before that school played its part in pulling me apart). It was a relationship full of fun, hope, and playfulness. Without a single clue as to what was going to come next…

And thusly, contacting her would achieve nothing but encouraging the Ghost of Life-Once-Was to haunt me again. They’re haunting me enough as it is. This woman isn’t really the same person who was my friend. She’s no longer CE but Mrs. H, a mother, whatever else she has become. The only thing that is still the same is that infectious smile, and her kind and sparkling eyes.

I do not remember the past, so it must be best to let sleeping dogs lie. I was long traumatised by everything that happened to me, and probably the best thing is that I have forgotten. Retrograde Amnesia happens in PTSD for a reason, after all – and I’ll kind-of thank Pregablin for deleting the rest. I may not have much Short or Long Term Memory, but although that is annoying and unfortunate at times, it’s a good thing most of the time, and it’s best not to go rooting around what’s there in my mind.

Therefore, Mrs. H, née CE, I think it still best you still don’t know where I am or how to contact me. I ensured my old name is not linked to my online footprint or profiles for good reason. My past should stay where it is. In the pictures. In memories. In the past.

I finally have something constructive to do for someone else – work, if you like. Unpaid and a volunteer role. One that is fun and somewhat challenging, so I’m pretty happy about it.

I have offered to help a friend – my best friend – with her (first of many, hopefully) application for a new job. Her current one is getting a bit rubbish, and she’s been doing it for over 15 years, so it’s time for a change. An inter-departmental change, but a change nonetheless. Where she will be appreciated a lot more than she is in the office and department of the organisation she works in right now.

Editing, ghostwriting, and having to stuff a ridiculous amount of key details into 250 words or less for each of the five answers required – actually my idea of fun. A challenge that involves editing and writing – very fun! I’ve taken her statements, the details of the examples she has given for each one – lengthy ones stuffed with every detail I could get out of her – and now I need to get all that information into the condensed version to go into the application form. A challenge for the kid who could never even stick to the 1000-word limit on essays in school, whilst everyone else seem to struggle to get over 50…

Like a lot of people with dyslexia (undiagnosed, but obvious – back in the 80s, few kids were ever even tested, let alone diagnosed with such a thing) she finds it difficult to write these things. She can speak brilliantly and can knock-em dead in an interview, but getting those interviews can be difficult. She knows what she wants to say, but can’t write it, which is where I step in.

I hope I will be able to do my friend justice – after all, she deserves the best chance to shine in a pile of identikit printouts on someone’s desk. She’s good at her job and deserves to be appreciated for it somewhere where people have a combined IQ of above double-figures. The problem is my medication for the… whatever. Pregabalin has helped in a lot of ways by muting some of the pain, but it has also affected my brain, my mind, my focus, my concentration, my perception, my memory – all the things I hold… held?… most dear. I have little else except my mind, and it has taken some of that away from me. On the other hand, the pain screaming in my brain takes away all of it, so you have to prioritise these things. But the fibre-fog, the Pregabalin haze, or whatever this problem with my mind is, is seriously detrimental to me and is preventing me from managing basic things – the one thing I don’t want to do is have it become detrimental to the work I’m about to do.

I’m hoping getting my concerns out of my system now, a little more coffee, some food, a little pep talk for a confidence boost (severely lagging), will allow me to concentrate better and get these answers written consciously and as required. My mind keeps fritting away, my focus waning constantly. Time, even days, seem to disappear. It’s a norm I refuse to accept, but doesn’t make it any less true.

Now the time escapes me again; what seems like a few minutes has turned out to be several hours. I don’t know where they go or why they seem to slip through my consciousness like sand through fingers, leaving no trace, feeling like nothing, disappearing quickly without a trace. I forget my meds, to eat, and in this case, to work.

Now I’m going to try really hard and concentrate, and get those statements edited into their 250-word maximum. Hopefully, I’ll end up getting it right. Deadline is in two days, and I need to get it done today.

Past Posts

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